


Our Version of Normal

by AgingPhangirl (Madophelia)



Series: Trope-a-Dope [3]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Across the Years, Coming Out, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, M/M, Slow Burn, sort of, technically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-10-18 14:53:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10619256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madophelia/pseuds/AgingPhangirl
Summary: Dan and Phil have their own version of 'normal'.It's changed a bit over the years though.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this on a train so it isn't from a prompt. It is just a weird little something so I decided to add it to this series.
> 
> Enjoy!

Phil is nine when he realises that normal is a relative term. At first, normal had been comparative, defined only by what other people were, and what he would never be. When he is nine, and he realises his view of the world can be somewhat different from other people’s, he realises that his version of normal, is just that. His own version. Normal becomes something he can define.

Dan is 14 when he gives in to the comparative of normal. He suppresses everything, pushes down each character trait outside the parameters he has set for himself as ‘normal’. For him, normal becomes something other people define, and he strives to achieve. 

Phil is 18 when he adapts his concept of normal to include kissing a blonde boy in the quiet of his university library. 

Dan is 15 when he doesn't let his version of normal accept the feeling of butterflies he gets when a boy in his drama class smiles at him. Instead, he pushes that down too.

Phil is 19 when normal includes talking to a camera on the floor of his bedroom. 

Dan is 18 when his version of normal shifts to include a pixelated image of a boy he'd allowed himself to follow online. And the butterflies are back, but normal doesn't seem to care and for the first time, he begins to make his own definition of it.

Phil is 22 when normal shifts again. It now includes a beautiful boy with chocolate eyes who he hugs on a train station platform and tries to stop himself blurring the lines that Dan has set for them. He tries not to push his version of normal on to Dan's, but somehow they start merging. 

Dan is 19 when his previous notion of normal abandons him for good. He's still not thinking about it too much, still resting on the idea of Law at university because he has no other plans, but finds himself moving to Manchester and closer to the only version of normal he wants to entertain. To huddling close to Phil on a two seater sofa and chiding each other softly, spending more nights in that flat than his own dorm, abandoning homework in favour of enjoying the frisson of trepidation he feels every time Phil stands in his personal space. And Phil's version of normal includes talking to him about boys and Dan's includes pretending he isn't jealous. It still doesn't include admitting that he knows what Phil is talking about.

Phil is 24 when it seems normal is shifting every day. Watching as it's no longer his version of normal but _theirs_. His and the boy he moves in with. Normal is seeing Dan across the breakfast bar, sleep rumpled and soft in the morning light. It's passing him every day objects, fingers lingering as they exchange hands. One day normal is Dan allowing this, and the next it isn't. Because now normal includes thousands of people online commenting on it. But normal shifts slowly and Phil just goes with it.

Dan is 21 when he isn't sure what normal is anymore. Because he'd thought it was the path he'd chosen, had conformed and beaten himself into the shape of a law student. But it isn't fitting him anymore. Instead what feels most normal, the version that they have now, is filming themselves in their shared space. Smiling softly at Phil in shot and then editing it out. It's suppressing the emotion on his face at every turn and denying, denying, denying on the internet and to himself that it was ever there in the first place. And he doesn't want whatever previous version of normal he'd been comfortable with, because the prospect of a different one is bright and beautiful and he knows he needs to find it somehow. He's fed up with the notion of normal as he understood it when he was young, because the version Phil is sharing with him is so much better. So by the time 21 leaves him, so does his resistance to their own version of normal.

Phil is 25 when normal is a move to London. It doesn't start normal, and he gets lost almost always and he's still embroiled in the thrill of a radio show all of their own at christmas, and the huge city filled with possibility stretching out around them but it becomes normal when Dan accepts the joint branding with minimal fuss, stands closer, holds his gaze longer, returns his smiles with an even wider one. And normal begins to change in tiny increments, everyday adding something new, drawing a new line.

Dan is 22 when normal becomes a drunken kiss. Just one at first and then more over time. Eventually only one drink is enough to shift the line sideways, and Dan ducks under the hesitation quickly, marvelling at how he wouldn't even have considered it even a year ago. But the year is filled with a weekly radio show, building and creating and he marvels at how Phil can juggle that and his mood swings with ease. And normal is how he appreciates his best friend for tolerating him with minimal fuss and the appreciation turns into affection and, he can barely admit to himself, attraction. And eventually, his normal is the constant ache associated with unrequited something. He won't say love because it feels slippery and far off. But if it's not love, if love isn't normal, it's something very much like it. 

Phil is 26 when he gets shocked by the kisses. He hadn't factored anything like it in to his definition of normal, but he feels lucky and tipsy and alive when it happens for the first time. And every time afterwards it becomes more normal but it hurts a little more that he's unsure if it's the alcohol that's making Dan so willing. But the pain becomes normal, and the hope becomes normal but what doesn't is Dan letting on whether any of this is his normal too. 

Dan is 23 when they get the idea for a book. And he's shocked that normal could ever encompass this. With every new idea for something to add to this tangible collection of the world they've created Dan keeps looking back and comparing normal now to normal back then and wondering how he got here. Where normal includes kisses that don't have to be drunk, but doesn't include them happening in public or talking about them afterwards. It includes wandering hands and ever so occasionally, tumbling into sheets with his best friend and finally.making normal the embracing of something he'd kept hidden in himself for so long.

Phil is 27 when he's finally had enough. Every page of the book they come up with in the early stages is a further explanation of what normal means to them. They get to share it with the world, but how can he do it when he isn't even sure if what they're doing even feels normal to both of them. Because they never discuss it. By the time the year is out, Phil decides that enough is enough. And normal involves him confronting Dan about it all. 

Dan is nearly 24 when they finally have it out. And stuttered confessions fall from his lips as Phil echoes them back. It's messy and complicated and they both lament the amount of time they've lost, but normal finally means closeness and togetherness and the feeling of inevitability and forever. 

Phil is 28 when they discuss the possibility of more. Laying barely touching on a hotel bed in Japan and deciding whether they'll ever make this version of normal their public version. Not yet, they decide, because they want it only for themselves, just for a little bit longer. 

Dan is 25 when he travels the world. Phil at his side never more than an arm's length away and only then because keeping the secret dictates it that way. Normal is hiding in plain sight and denying it only for the sake of appearances rather than any form of shame. It's the discussion coming round once again to the possibility of forever and they slip ‘future’ and ‘when’ into their conversations more easily these days than ‘now’ and ‘if’. Normal is agreeing that they will without having any kind of plan how. 

Phil is 29 when he realises that normal has shifted again. That editing takes less time because they don't cut out as much. That normal allows them into each other's lives and encourages him to slip ‘our’ and ‘we’ into conversation where he previously wouldn't have. And this might be his favourite version of normal so far, watching the undisguised affection, never discussed but mutually actioned wind it's way frame by frame into every joint appearance they make on camera. Normal starts forming a plan. 

Dan is still 25 when Phil asks. And when he says yes. Because they wasted enough time with whatever iteration of normal came before this moment and he doesn't want to waste any more. 

Phil is 30 when the rest of it begins. When normal never stops moving from one day to the next but sometimes he forgets there are any boundaries at all. Because normal is relative, he can define it, but he can choose not to as well. He can choose to just let it happen, to be free with it in a way he hasn't been before. 

Dan is not yet 26 when normal is a house. When it is cosy home ownership and shared moments under ceilings that aren't the floor of the flat above them. It's now that he gives in to the relativism of normal, doesn't shape himself to any definition other than his own and realises that from the infinite versions of normal he could have created, this one will always be the best.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [Tumblr](http://agingphangirl.tumblr.com) and maybe send me a prompt for this series?


End file.
